Shadowbolt Harmony Division

by Rainium

Chapter 3

Rainy was inside the building before the smoke had cleared, quickly stepping past what remained of the crude barricade the rioters had put up. That explosion likely alerted every pony in this building; she had to hurry to prepare a good defensive position before they arrived.

"SPARC, activate battle mode."

Her watch blinked, and her HUD was swept with changes. Health and ammo readouts appeared into the easily accessed parts of her vision, moving out to the side to open up her field of view without obstructing it. The weapon crosshair blinked to life on her HUD as well, following wherever she pointed her gun. Her motion tracker still showed nothing. Curious. If there were any ponies galloping to investigate the explosion, it would have detected them by now.

Rainy blinked at the comm icon on her goggles, opening up a secure channel with command. "Command, I'm inside the field hospital. Sensors are quiet."

"Copy that..." the voice on the other side replied. "Move in and search the area. I'll be trying to gain access into the security camera feed, hopefully I’ll be able to get you a fix on Dr. Glimmershine's location.”

"Roger that, Rainy out."

She ended the call and raised her rifle, moving into the stadium. Rainy stepped past the metal detectors and ticket booths, arriving in the main lobby. The area, once decorated with promotional material for the various sporting and entertainment events held here, was now covered in various government messages and warnings. Posters advertising the Garden as a Field Hospital covered hoofball advertisements and horse hockey scoreboards. Trash and soiled bandages covered the floor, along with spent shell casings and empty rifle magazines. The left side of the concourse was filled with abandoned shops and restaurants; to her right was the escalator leading up to court level. The left side was blocked off by virus scanning equipment and riot barricades, so she moved to the right.

After she had made it halfway to the escalator from the entrance, the faint sound of galloping hooves caused her ears to perk up.

"Spread out! Whoever's here, they've gotta be close."

She quickly ducked behind one of the crowd-control barriers as a group of rioters came into view on the second floor. They looked a rough bunch, most of them wearing ragged, blood-stained cold-weather gear. They smelled like they hadn't showered in weeks; Rainy crinkled her muzzle in disgust.

A few of them sported rifles and handguns, most likely looted from higher ranked EUP officers, but most of the rioters only held swords and knives, more easily obtained weapons. She hoped they didn't know how to use them...

The group slowly made their way down the broken escalator, casually talking among themselves. Rainy waited until they had reached the ground floor with her before rising up from behind her cover, raising her rifle.

"Halt!"

The group stopped as one, staring, surprised, at the pristine white mare in front of them. Rainy continued to speak while they remained silent, shifting her rifle's focus from pony to pony after a few seconds.

"I am a Shadowbolt Division Agent sent by Princess Celestia herself. Stand down now, or I will use lethal force."

A few tense seconds of silence followed, as the rioters contemplated the situation in front of them.

"...It's only one mare! We can take 'er!"

"Light 'er up!"

The stallions with rifles raised them to aim at Rainy as she let out a sigh.

"...Well, it was worth a try."

As the bullets began to fly, Rainy dove to the ground, sliding behind the barrier she had been hiding behind before. She poked her rifle around the edge of her cover, blindly firing, causing the rioters to scramble for cover as well, but the suppressive fire resumed after a few seconds.

Well, this should be easy... Rainy thought. Just wait for them to run out of bullets.

However, the sound of hoofsteps approaching her position put a hold to those thoughts. She had forgotten about the rioters with melee weapons.

She managed to straighten up and scoot back as a looter rounded the corner, swinging a knife at where she had been just moments before. Being careful not to expose any part of her body above her cover, she scooted back as he attacked again, blocking his second swipe with the stock of her rifle. She then jabbed the butt of her gun into his muzzle, causing him to stumble back, before sweeping the stallion's legs out from underneath him in one slick move.

Before she could finish him off, another pony grabbed her from behind. The shaft of his police baton pressed against her neck, pulling her to her hind hooves and out of cover. Rainy grunted as her windpipe was restricted, stumbling backward slightly as the stallion pulled her, wincing as bullets whizzed past the two of them.

"Hold your fire, dammit! You'll hit him too!"

As the shooting halted, Rainy jabbed a hoof into her attacker's ribs, driving the air out of his lungs and causing him to lose his grip on her. She used the opportunity to wriggle free and followed it up with a hind-leg-buck to the chin, sending him sprawling.

The first pony, now recovered, stumbled up to take a swing at her, which she slipped with ease before sending a counter jab into his side, causing him to wince and recoil slightly. However, as he stumbled away, a firing lane opened up once more, and ducked as more rounds flew overhead.

By this time, a third rioter had reached her position, vaulting over the barricade to whack at her with a fire ax in his mouth. Rainy rolled away from the blow and sprang back up to her hooves before backing away slowly, keeping the two stallions in front of her. The one with the knife moved in and jabbed at her throat; Rainy grabbed his hoof, holding the knife in place. The rioter with the fire ax swung at her head from the side, and she ducked, causing him to sink the blade into the other stallion's throat. Rainy then twisted the hoof with the knife to point at the ax pony's chest and jabbed it upwards, burying it hilt-deep inside him. Blood splattered over her as she stepped back, watching as the two looters collapsed, each still holding onto the murder weapon of the other.

"Oh goddesses, she killed them!"

"You're gonna pay for that, bitch!"

As the rioters raised their rifles once more, Rainy realized that she had moved too far away from cover during the hoof fight and was now completely exposed. Thinking quickly, she flared her wings and shot straight up as gunfire erupted below her.

She leveled out and quickly turned to zoom towards the rifle-wielding stallions, closing down the distance in seconds before they could shift their aim. Rainy plowed into one of them at full speed, knocking him down and causing him to slide back several meters. The pony next to her quickly shifted his aim to her, but before he could pull the trigger, Rainy pumped her wings once more, this time propelling her to the side and sliding her across the floor, sweeping the legs out from underneath him. She continued to slide to the other side of the stallion as he collapsed, where she quickly regained her footing and raised her rifle, firing off a three round burst that caught a shotgun-wielding rioter in the shoulder. Then, as the stallion at her hooves tried to recover, she unloaded a burst into him as well.

That left two more looters, both melee wielding stallions who hadn't moved up in the initial charge. With all their fire support now dead or incapacitated, the two tried to make a dash up the escalator, but Rainy calmly dropped them with a few well-placed bursts.

"Is that all of them?..." she wondered aloud as she glanced around the lobby. None of the downed rioters stirred. "...Perfect."

Rainy reloaded her rifle as she trotted up the stairs, heading deeper into the stadium.

She activated her comms through her goggles as she walked, scanning the abandoned food booths for any hiding enemies. "Hey, command, do you have a fix on Agrippa's location yet?"

"One second..." the voice replied, "...There. I'm in. Scanning security feed now... I have a probable match on Dr. Glimmershine. She's on the court, looks like at least one rioter is with her."

"Copy that," Rainy answered, then frowned slightly. "Only nine rioters total? Seems really short staffed."

"It's possible there could be more of them deeper into the stadium. I would proceed with caution. I'm getting no signal from the locker room cameras."

"Understood. I'll keep my eyes open," Rainy said, clicking off the comm feed before following the graffiti-covered signs to the bleachers.

As she approached the entrance to the court level, voices drifting through the doors caused her ears to perk up.

"What the hell are you doing? You're hurting him!" a stallion cried out.

"Listen up," a mare responded sternly, "I spent six years in medical school training for a situation like this. I don't give a shit what you saw on TV while you were watching soap operas in your mother's basement, but fixing a bullet wound in the gut isn't pretty. You want your buddy fixed? You stay out of my way."

"...Is that a threat?"

"I'm just telling you the truth."

Yep. That was definitely her. Rainy gently pressed a hoof against the door, swinging it open slowly, peeking through the widening slit. The grandstands towered up on either side of her, the usually packed bleachers eerily void of all signs of life. Gurneys, medical crates, and lights covered the court, the hardwood stained with blood. The huge multi-screen scoreboard that hung over the center of the court flickered with service announcements from the crown, instructing patients to wait in line for a doctor to treat them. At the free throw line of the basket nearest to Rainy, two ponies surrounded a gurney. One was a blue pegasus mare, who seemed to be treating an injured pony on the cot; the other was a gray unicorn stallion, who was watching the procedure over her shoulder. This had to be them.

Rainy carefully pushed the door open until she could slip through, quietly slinking up behind the two. Once she was close enough, Rainy raised her rifle and drove it into the back of the stallion’s head. The force of the blow knocked the rioter forward against the gurney before he fell to the floor, knocked out cold. Agrippa let out a squeak of surprise as the body scooted away from her hooves as the gurney moved from the impact, before looking over her shoulder to see Rainy standing over his limp body.

"...Oh..." Agrippa managed to get out as she saw the identity of her rescuer.

Rainy swallowed as she tried her best to remain professional, looking down at a pony she hadn't seen in years. "Doctor Glimmershine?"

Years of hurt flashed across Agrippa's eyes as she returned the stare. "...Rainy."

Rainy nodded, looking her over. "I'm here to rescue you."

"Fantastic."

The two mares stood in awkward silence, each refusing to break.

After a few more seconds, Rainy cracked first, "...Were you actually healing him?"

"...Oh, hell no, he was actually right. There's no way I'm healing this guy, I don't have the tools or the time. He went into hypovolemic shock a few minutes ago." Agrippa quickly grabbed a syringe of morphine from the now unowned stash and injected it into the injured pony. "There. Now at least his last moments will be less painful."

Rainy nodded, re-equipping her rifle and stepping towards the exit. "Alright. Just grab whatever you need and let's get out of here. Who knows how many more rioters will be on their way-"

"No."

Rainy paused, one hoof raised in the air as she looked back at Agrippa. "Excuse me?"

"There are EUP guards still alive here. I'm not leaving without them," Agrippa replied defiantly, standing firm.

Rainy blinked, taken aback. "...No. I can't risk losing you, you're too important."

"Well, then you better do a good job protecting me, huh?"

Rainy sighed, rubbing her forehead briefly. She didn't have time for this! "Look, I can drop you off at the base and come back for these ponies later, if you really think they're that important."

"To be quite honest, I can't trust you to keep your word on that," Agrippa retorted, the feelings of loss glinting in her pupils once more. "We're doing this now, Rainy."

Rainy opened her mouth to offer another compromise, but before she could, she caught a glimpse of silhouettes galloping onto the far side of the court. The whinnies of surprise, the metallic glint of raised rifles...

"Get down!" Rainy cried.

Her wings propelled her forward to tackle Agrippa, knocking them both to the ground behind the gurney as gunfire ripped through the air above them. The two collapsed with a thud, the stretcher briefly shielding them from the bullets. Rainy draped herself on top of the doctor to shield her in case any rounds pierced through their weak cover, before letting out a sigh of relief as the gunfire paused.

"...What the hell are you doing?!" Agrippa sputtered as Rainy remained on top of her, trying to push her off with her hooves.

"Trying to keep you alive, doctor," Rainy replied. "Keep your head down or lose it."

Her motion tracker still showed nothing. Damn thing was probably broken somehow. She minimized it to free a bit of her field of vision. Rainy rolled off of Agrippa and scooted to the end of the gurney to peek around the side. At least nine rioters, all armed with firearms. One of them sported a markspony rifle. That thing could pick her off in one shot if she wasn't careful. Quick cover-to-cover movement would be key.

Rainy grabbed her pistol out of the holster strapped on her hind leg and slid it across the floor to Agrippa. "Take this and stay down."

"You don't have to tell me twice," Agrippa replied, grabbing the gun and flicking off the safety.

Rainy nodded and peeked around the corner. "Alright, I'm gonna try to make it to that crate over there, draw the fire away from you. Once I'm there, I can try to pick them off, maybe take to the air to bombard them from above. Whatever happens, stay hidden, don't draw attention to yourself."

Her wings flared out as she prepared herself.

Agrippa blinked, "What? No! You can't!"

Rainy paused, looking back at her. "...Why not?"

"Didn't they tell you? The magic here kills!"

As Agrippa spoke those words, Rainy's mind began racing. Her mind flashed back to the sign on the riverside. Save your magic. Save lives. The magic kills. The unicorn with no horn, who cut it off herself. The magic here kills. Everything suddenly clicked for her, causing her already white face to go pale.

She had flown into Manehattan. She had flown in a contaminated quarantine area. She was infected.

Agrippa noticed the look on Rainy's face and sighed. "...You've already used your wings, haven't you?"

Rainy blinked, then shook her head. "That's not important. Let's focus on getting you the hell out of here."

Agrippa just shook her head.

Rainy folded her wings against her sides as she prepared to sprint once more. After a pause in the suppressive fire as the rioters reloaded, Rainy burst from her hiding spot, galloping to her next form of cover before sliding behind it as a sniper bullet flew over her head. She let out a sigh of relief as she caught her breath and readied her rifle.

"Move up! I'll keep her suppressed!" the markspony yelled out, causing Rainy's ears to perk up. Perfect. Let them come to her.

As rifle fire zipped above the crate and the hoofsteps of rioters approached her position, Rainy grabbed a flashbang out of her bag and activated it, tossing it over the top of her cover once they got close.

"...Grenade! Get down!" one of them managed to cry out before a blinding and deafening flash erupted, causing several of the looters to stumble back.

Rainy jumped up and raised her rifle, several bursts of automatic fire dispatching most of the group before they had a chance to recover. As the markspony shifted his aim, Rainy shifted her aim over to him as well, letting out a flurry of lead that zoomed over his head, forcing him to duck down. She took the opportunity to slip out of cover, galloping into the midst of the recovering rioter group, the mass of stumbling bodies giving her cover from the sniper.

One of the stallions to recover first took a bleary, weak swing at her; she quickly dropped and slid on her back underneath the blow, coming to a stop underneath him. Rainy pressed her gun against his stomach and pulled the trigger, the recoil pulling the rifle upwards as the bullets ripped through him, filling him with bullets from stomach to throat. She rolled out from underneath him as he collapsed, recovering to a crouch to unload a burst into another rioter as he tried to track her.

By this time, the markspony had recovered, bracing the sniper rifle against the top of a gurney as he aimed down the sights. Rainy quickly moved once more while several high-caliber rounds whizzed past her, one accidentally striking a rioter as she slipped behind him. She caught his body as he collapsed, using him as a body shield, aiming around him and shooting at the markspony. She didn’t stop until a round caught him in the shoulder, a spray of red signifying his demise.

Rainy tossed the limp body aside, looking around for her next target. Her eyes focused on a rioter as he grabbed his downed friend's rifle, fumbling with it slightly as he pointed it at her. She raised her own rifle... CLICK. Her magazine was empty with no time to reload. Thinking fast, Rainy ejected the magazine and hurled it at the stallion, causing him to flinch and throw off his aim slightly, and the bullets buzzed past her head. She closed the distance before he recovered and tackled him onto the ground. She pulled her combat knife out of its sheath and plunged it into his throat as he squirmed underneath her, causing him to go limp.

That left one more. Rainy rolled off the body and scanned the area, looking for any sign of the last rioter, but seeing nothing. Did he run away? Did he go after Agrippa?

However, the sound of movement behind her interrupted her thoughts, and she spun around to see a large stallion looming over her, his rifle stock pointed at her face as he thrust it forward. Her wings flared instinctively to try to fly away from the blow, but she forced herself to not use them, instead taking the rifle butt to the muzzle. The force of the hit caused her to stumble back, her vision filling with stars. With some separation between the two, the stallion pointed his rifle at Rainy, but she was able to recover and stumble forward, grabbing the barrel and pushing it away from her as it fired. The two fought over control of the weapon, the rioter's strength forcing Rainy back as she wobbled slightly on her hind legs. His muzzle was only a few centimeters from her own, a vicious grin on his face as the barrel slowly moved to point at her.

He snarled. "You're dead, bitch."

Then, all of the sudden, the rioter's head exploded. Rainy flinched as blood and gray matter sprayed over her face, the body going limp in her hooves. She dropped the corpse and stumbled back, wiping at the blood in her eyes.

"W-What the..."

She glanced over to see Agrippa peeking out over the gurney, smoking pistol in her hooves.

"You okay?" Agrippa asked as she lowered the gun.

"Yeah..." Rainy replied, wiping the blood off her face. "...Thanks."

"Yeah, whatever," Agrippa shrugged and slipped the pistol into her coat pocket. "Let's free those guards and get out of here."

Comments

[Mkchief34]

Great work!

[CommanderApplejack]

Hmm, interesting